Cynthia Ozick Quotes

The seed of revolution is repression.

I think that revolution means change. And if somebody feels like there's nothing wrong, everything's great even when it ain't, why would they ask for a revolution? Just stick the tubes into me and just pump away.

All great rebellions are born of private acts of civil disobedience that inspire rebel bands to plot together.

It is difficult to violently suppress people in the long run, as the example of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries has shown.

Fight the power that be. Fight the power.

Boredom is always counter-revolutionary. Always.

Thought that is silenced is always rebellious.

Agitate, agitate, agitate.

It is authority that provokes revolution....

It is repression that creates the revolutionary spirit of freedom.

A little rebellion is a good thing.

To those who had ordered them to death, one of them said: “We die because the people are asleep and you will die because the people will awaken.”

The original American patriots were those individuals brave enough to resist with force the oppressive power of King George... Patriotism is more closely linked to dissent than it is to conformity and a blind desire for safety and security.

What is a rebel? A man who says no.

The revolt against any oppression usually goes to an opposite extreme for a time; and that is right and necessary.

I do not know of any salvation for society except through eccentrics, misfits, dissenters, people who protest.

Martyrdom does not end something. It is only the beginning.

I can raise more hell in jail than out.

No act which is directed against the Inquisition can deserve the name of a rebellion.

History pays more attention to reformers than others. We pay more attention to dissenters too.

It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a good cause.

Somewhere, somehow, and by somebody, a beginning must be made and that the first act of resistance is always, and must be ever, premature, imprudent, and dangerous.

Only force would produce social change.

… the most sacred right [revolution] to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better.